Becoming a Stronger Executive Director: Professional Development through Fast Pitch

“One thousand people crammed into a two car garage. This is the amount of green space a child growing up in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles can ever hope to have.” This shocking fact was delivered to the 2012 Social Innovation Fast Pitch audience by Alina Bokde, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (LANLT). LANLT’s work to secure land for future parks and gardens in low-income areas builds up communities. Opportunities for exercise, community engagement, citizen leadership, and safe and fun time outside are given in the green spaces LANLT secures. And Alina’s Fast Pitch experience helped her articulate “not just why the Land Trust is important, but why the issue of green spaces is so important.”

Working with her Fast Pitch coaches, Alina found new ways to connect with her audiences and deliver her powerful message. “I used to say a child had .01 acres of green space. Nobody knows what that is. But now I can say ‘a thousand people in a two-car garage’ and people can understand that. They can see it.” Alina continues to weave elements of her pitch into her other speaking engagements and says that having strong statements already in mind has been very helpful.

She’s even getting her staff on board! “It was great for me to have dedicated time for professional development and I wanted to share that with my staff.” Alina says “you hear about elevator pitches all the time, but that was something I had never been trained on,” and now the whole LANLT staff is receiving the training. Sharing her experience, Alina asked everyone on her staff to create a 3-minute elevator speech about LANLT and how they contribute to the organization. “It really got the staff listening to each other – critiquing one another, reviewing together, sharing language with one another, learning things from each other.”

Alina says, “It’s great how the pitch and process has really translated to other areas. [Fast Pitch] made me a stronger executive director.”